ABSTRACT
Most people in Africa moved directly from making and using stone and bone tools to making and using iron ones. In the greater part of the continent there seems to have been no intermediate period when copper and bronze tools were made and used, as in Europe and Asia. Consequently, for a long time archaeologists assumed that a knowledge of iron-smelting and blacksmithing must have been introduced to Africa from the Mediterranean world, and probably at a late date. However, excavations have now shown that African iron-working is older than was thought and could have been the result of indigenous invention. The matter is still not resolved satisfactorily but it is clear that the introduction of iron did have long-term repercussions of great importance, providing more efficient tools, as well as more effective weapons. Yet in the short term its adoption seems often to have been slow, depending on its availability and the extent of cultural conservatism, so that its impact was probably variable. Nevertheless, iron technology eventually changed the face of much of the continent, commencing in West and Central Africa over 2500 years ago and reaching parts of southern Africa by about 1500 years ago.
